Google Bans Non-Play Store Android App Updates

If you use Android, you may have had Facebook updates foisted upon you that didn't require going anywhere near the Play store. That made Google angry—so it's banned developers from being able to update apps except from through its store.

Previously, if users chose to allow installations from unknown sources on their handset, an alert in an app could easily take them to an update hosted anywhere. From the new set of rules, however:

An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play's update mechanism.

There doesn't seem much scope for getting around that. So it looks like Facebook—and anyone else who saw the Play store as an irritating middle man—will have to suck it up and play ball with Schmidt and co. [Google via Verge]